


Birthdays and perfect days

by jauneclair



Category: Black Sails
Genre: (mostly), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthdays, Canon Disabled Character, Dad!Flint, Domestic Bliss, Feels, Gen, Kidfic, M/M, Scrabble, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jauneclair/pseuds/jauneclair
Summary: James' perfect birthday with his family.





	Birthdays and perfect days

**Author's Note:**

> I have NO excuse for this, other than that I needed to write something relatively light and fluffy to brighten up my days. 
> 
> There is a backstory to this, aka a prequel I hope to someday write: James hires John as a nanny for his daughter when he needs to go back to work after a long bereavement (Thomas passed away a year or so earlier). John is an excellent nanny to Aurelia (James' daughter); silverflint romance ensues.

Though he was still mostly asleep, a whispered conversation tugged at the edge of James' consciousness.

"But that's so _old_!"

"Ssssh, don't say that."

"Are you going to be that old someday?"

He could tell John was stifling a laugh. "I certainly hope so."

James blinked awake. Various regions of his body protested as he rolled onto his side. 

John sat cross-legged on the other side of the bed, in a worn shirt and sweatpants that he'd cut above the knee, to make it easier to sleep without his prosthetic. Aurelia, also in her pajamas, squirmed in his lap. A wooden breakfast tray, holding two plates' worth of sausages, eggs, and potatoes, rested between the two of them and James. It was a very aromatic and tempting boundary.

"G'morning," James muttered. He kneaded his eyes, trying to rub the sleep from them: it was nearly too early for this. "What, with all this trouble that you went to, you'd think it was my birthday or something."

"As if we would ever forget!" John said, clasping a hand over his heart and tilting his head to one side, so that his tangle of bedridden curls cascaded over his shoulder. "The breakfast was Aurelia's idea, however."

James had managed to prop himself up on one elbow in the moment before Aurelia scrambled out of John's lap and flung her arms around his neck. "Happy birthday, Daddy," she said, and he tried not to hug her too tightly. His eyes, rather embarrassingly, started to sting.

Last year, his birthday had been a miserable affair that had passed largely unmarked: a few months out from Thomas' death, with Aurelia too young to note such things and with James begging his friends and acquaintances to leave him well alone. Aurelia probably wouldn't even remember the day - James had taken her to the park, which he'd done nearly every other day while he'd been on leave from work. In the evening after she'd gone to bed, he'd downed half a bottle of wine while mulling (and perhaps crying) over some old photo albums: his and Thomas' wedding, their honeymoon in Italy, baby photos of Aurelia.

"Thank you, sunshine," he said, when she pulled out of the hug.

This year was different. It was nothing less than miraculous, the difference a year made. This year they had John.

He leaned over the tray of cooling food and kissed John on the lips, a simple thing. "Thank you," James whispered, brushing one of the many rogue curls back behind John's ear. The answering smile he received in return was also a small, simple thing, but it felt like nothing less than being offered the keys to the city.

"You're very much welcome," John said. "You should eat before it gets cold."

"I think I will," James said. Aurelia scooted to sit by his knee as he pulled the breakfast tray into his lap. "What about the two of you?"

John began, "Well - " and then Aurelia hiccuped.

"Events overcame us," his boyfriend answered with a white-toothed grin.

"Hmm," James said around a mouthful of sausage. "I don't blame you, with how good this tastes. Clearly Aurelia was the chef de jour."

He threw a large wink in her direction.

Aurelia poked him in between the ribs. "Don't be mean, Daddy. John only almost started a fire that _one_ time. A long time ago."

It wasn't quite as long ago as she thought - only a few months, really. John's cooking had, honestly, improved exponentially since James had taken it upon himself to make sure that the other man was trained in various techniques of both the culinary and fire prevention sort.

"I'm just teasing," he said. "John's quite a decent cook. Now."

"Flatterer," John said, but he beamed.

It was a very pleasant birthday. He'd insisted on absolutely no gifts, an edict that he was pleased to see observed, though there was a handmade card from Aurelia (a heart made out of red construction paper). The three of them lazed around almost into the afternoon, then went down to the water to watch the boats and the birds. They capped the outing with a low-key dinner at James' favorite pizza place - he'd yet to work up the courage or the energy to take Aurelia out to anywhere properly fancy - and went home to play a few rounds of Scrabble.

It was Aurelia's favorite, in spite of the fact that she spent most of the game rearranging her tiles into similar combinations of the handful of two, three, and four-letter words she knew; and in spite of or perhaps because of the fact that it pitted James and John against each other in a cosmic battle against each other.

The two men sat on the floor on opposite sides of the coffee table, while Aurelia sat on the couch.

"'Selfie' is not a word!"

James capped his pronouncement by setting his beer down on the coffee table so hard the pieces in his tray rattled.

"It absolutely is a word," the little shit sitting across from him argued.

"Not a Scrabble word!"

"Bul-- loney," John stuttered, changing tack mid-sentence in response to a sharp glare from James.

"Shall we settle this like gentlemen?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"It's never going to be in the dictionary! That dictionary is older than all three of us combined."

"Then you do concede that you used an illegal word?" James asked.

"I consider your use of the term 'illegal' to be highly pejorative," John said. "How can a word be illegal? If you prick it, does it not bleed? If you tickle it, does it not laugh? If you don't tuck it into bed properly, does it not wake you at three in the morning to ask you for a glass of milk?"

"Aurelia, did you wake John up again last night?" James asked, swinging his head around. His daughter was already flipping through the dictionary, wordlessly voicing out letters.

She did look up, though, and pouted in a way that James was come to suspect would be very dangerous, in the long-term, for his self-control and likely his wallet.

"It was your _birthday_ ," she whinged. "I couldn't wake you up!"

"She gets this from you, you know," James told John. "This whole evading the subject business. Or did you think it would escape my notice that we're no longer talking about your pejorative Scrabble maneuver?"

John went quiet for a long few moments, shuffling his Scrabble tiles around in his tray. James was just about to broach it, when Aurelia said,

"Selfie is not a word." She closed the dictionary.

"Shocker," James said, rolling his eyes.

"For your next birthday," John muttered, withdrawing his errant and illegal tiles from the board, "I'm buying you an updated dictionary. Alright, Aurelia, let's see what you have - 'pie''s a good one. But how about P - I - R - A - T - E…"

In another shocking reversal and as a result of some completely accurate and foolproof accounting, Aurelia trounced both of them. Not even on his birthday would James rig the game in his own favor.

"'m tired," Aurelia announced after the expected victory boasting was complete. She swung down off the couch.

John glanced up at him, already gathering the little wooden tiles into the bag. "I can clean this up, it's alright."

"You're sure?" he asked.

John waved them off. 

Aurelia hugged him on her way out of the living room. "G'night, John."

"Goodnight, sleep tight," John said. He tweaked her nose. "See you in the morning, kiddo."

Later, once he'd gotten Aurelia into her bed, she asked, "Did you have a good birthday, Daddy?"

"I did," he said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "And the last and best gift of all would be if you would stay in your bed tonight and not wake John or I up."

Aurelia seemed to think about it.

"Alright," she begrudged. "But only if I can have Betsy."

James handed her the stuffed cat toy. "Goodnight, sunshine."

He turned off the light and shut the door, then padded down the hallway into the kitchen.

John was doing dishes, hair piled in a loose knot that was - adorably - asymmetrical and sitting on the left side of his head. Half the curls on the right side of his head had already rebelled and escaped over his neck and shoulders. James slid in behind him, wrapping his arms around John's midsection and burying his face in the tangle of curls at the nape of the other man's neck.

"Hello," John said. The dishes clattered as he piled them in the drying rack and then turned off the water. For a moment, it was quiet: just the two of them, their breathing slowly synchronizing.

After a while, James pulled away. He pushed a wayward curl back behind John's ear as the other man stood there, hip cocked against the kitchen counter, dishtowel still hanging from his hands. He was so lucky; so lucky to be able to touch John all he wanted, after so many months of not being able to - so lucky to be able to repeat this gesture, tucking John's hair out of his face, as many times a day as John would allow it.

"This was perfect," James said. "Thank you."

"Good," John said with a tentative smile. Then he looked away, twisting the dishtowel in his hands.

"Hey," James said, fingers tracing a path down John's shoulder and arm to squeeze his elbow, "something wrong? Is it about what I said before, about Aurelia picking things up from you? I was only teasing. Sorry if I upset you."

"It's not that," John said.

James pressed. "Something else?"

John looked up, and away again.

"Will you marry me?" he blurted out.

James stood there for a moment, stiff with shock.

"Sorry," John said, wringing the dishtowel with both hands, eyes skittering away from James' own. "Shit! I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that, I don't even have anything - not that it matters. It's really early still, and I didn't want to imply anything about - about your past - I mean I was only your nanny a few months ago, and now I'm standing here - "

"Asking me to marry you," James said.

"Right!" John laughed, a nervous thing. He glanced up at James for the briefest of moments but couldn't hold the gaze. "It's not my place at all to put you in this position, not when - you've given me a home. Without you and Aurelia, I'd be nothing but a fucking invalid out there in the world."

"John," he said, "I'd really like to say yes, if you'd just shut the fuck up for a single second."

John stared, his jaw nearly on the floor, but miraculously silent.

"You're not an invalid - wait, let me talk, please. I know it's hard for both of us to ask for what we want sometimes. But I want to marry you. I love you. _We_ love you. And I know you love us."

"I do." John took a shuddering breath. If his Caribbean-blue eyes were a little too bright tonight, James wouldn't mention it. "Jesus Christ, I do. Sorry - I shoud've planned this better. I totally botched it, didn't I?"

"You didn't." He brushed John's hair back from his face again. God, it was becoming an obsession. And - a little giddily, he thought - one that he was being given a blank check to do for the rest of his life. "Should we tell Aurelia now, or wait 'til morning?"

John scrunched up his nose. "Morning," he decided. "She'll never sleep otherwise."

"Speaking of sleep," James said, stepping forward to pluck the towel out of John's hands and put a hand on his hip, "I think you and I have some things to get going on first, yeah?"

John grinned. "Your flirting is really awful, you know that? You're such a dad that you can't even say out loud that you want to take me into the bedroom and - "

"Hush," James said, clamping a hand over John's relentless and embarrassing mouth. "Or I won't let you get on with it."

They'd become very good, very quickly, at very quietly indulging in all sorts that James feared he was going to have to awkwardly explain to his daughter well before he was ready to do so.

He kissed John afterwards.

"Now," he whispered against the other man's lips, "it's beyond perfect."


End file.
